Merry Christmas Gerry and Molly

For those of you who don't know the story.  Gerry is a 97 year old neighbour.  About 10? years ago he began taming the area next to Brooksbank.  He replaced invasive brambles with bee friendly and other ornamental plants.  Neighbours noticed and started offering him tools, leftover, plants, soil etc.  North Van City became involved and now dog walkers, joggers, bicyclists, and even horse riders enjoy the garden.  Gerry continues to maintain it when his health allows.  Molly's job is wrangling Gerry so he doesn't overdo it.  Many of the children and staff know Gerry and he loves it when we stop to say Hi.

On Wednesday, Brooksbank students took turns decorating a pine tree in Gerry's Garden next to the school.  In the afternoon, the students from our class and Mrs. Spofforth's kindies presented our concert numbers to them.  We also presented them with a card signed by Brooksbank students and staff.  Gerry and Molly were really touched.

Students of the Week

Congratulations Aly and Callum!

Rain Rain Finally Gone

During November when it rained for 27 days, the students created watercolour, oil pastel, and pencil crayon rainy day pictures.  Water colour painting is tricky because mistakes can't be hidden with more paint.  I think the students' work is amazing!

Christmas Concert

Thank you for coming to the concert to support your child and all of the children at Brooksbank.  A huge thank you is owed to Mrs. Schwarzbach for preparing the children and for organizing the logistics as well as she did.  I am so proud of the children in our class who really pulled together to teach me the dance, to give positive feedback after each rehearsal, and to pull it all together and do a great job on stage.

Here are a few behind the scenes photos as we waited in a too warm, too crowded change room below.  As you can see the students went from quiet and orderly to a little crazy and back again.

Congratulations to the Schwarzbach family!  Baby Andrew is beautiful!

Students of the Week

Congratulations Eric and London!

Note: The word clouds below were created live by the students.  i.e.  They were able to see what they wrote on the screen immediately.  The descriptions they chose to write had to be positive, meaningful, and ideally spelled correctly.  With permission by me, and the student of the week, a few were allowed to write something silly as long as they wrote something meaningful as well.  The size of the word is determined by how often it was submitted.